What will Amateur Radio be like in 2015? Will there be Amateur Radio in thirty-three years from now? Interesting questions, to be sure.

Reprinted from QST is a tongue-in- cheek prediction of Amateur Radio's future as seen from 1946. Is our vision of the future as clear as this one, written before the days of transistors, ICs, and computers?

Looking into the cloudy crystal ball, I see Amateur Radio flourishing in 2015 but in a far different form than the hobby of today.

Why, then, Amateur Radio?

As a consequence of the information explosion and instant cornmunications available in 2015, radio transmission in the medium- and high- frequency spectrum will be obsolete, except for some military purposes (over-the-horizon radar, the Woodpecker, for example), scientific studies, and Amateur Radio communications. All else will be transmitted by other, more reliable, means.

Radio Amateurs will not be restricted to bands in 2075. They will roam freely the entire high-frequency spectrum. And more. Amateurs will work alongside the few users of the radio spectrum over a frequency range of 500 kHz to perhaps 75 MHz. This is how it will be done.

The ham station of 2015

The Amateur station of the future will consist of a broadband transmitter, receiver, and antenna, computer controlled and capable of frequency-agile transmission at any point in the radio spectrum. Let's suppose Our Hero has one of these marvelous devices and wishes to make contact with another Amateur station.

The computer terminal is energized and a propagation display appears on the screen, derived directly from the International Weather Service through the optic-fiber communications line running into the home.

Looking at Europe on the map, Our Hero decides it would be nice to have a chat with a German or French Amateur. He keys his instructions into the computer. Instantly his transmitter is armed with the proper data. It transmits a coded signal (similar to the CQ of olden days) that jumps about in frequency in a sequence selected by the computer that continually sweeps to interrogate the Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF) over the chosen path. Frequency agility is rapid, the signal remaining on any one spot for less than a second. To a casual observer, looking over the range of frequency spotting, no signal is apparent. To another observer, however, who has received the coded transmission and keys his equipment up in response to this code, an interference-free signal is received that contains the data needed to transmit a reply in the same coded sequence as that received.

Our Hero, then, has keyed in a frequency agility code, as well as codes that select the region of the earth (or country) to be scanned by his receiving computer. All this information appears on the video screen of his equipment.

The signal is ignored by all stations except those whose computers are programmed to search for the particular code Our Hero is using. Once a code match is established, the second ("reply") station alerts the first ("search") station that it is in lock. The search station may jump about in frequency to dodge interference, but its continually transmitted coding signal forces the reply station to follow it to the exact Hertz!

The QSO

Now that the two stations are completely in lock, the contact can run until the Maximum Usable Frequency falls below the critical cutoff frequency at which signals are lost on the particular path. Continuously listening to each other, the computers instantly shift frequency at will, seeking a clear channel for QRM-free communications.

Our Hero can now choose his mode of communications. Voice? Slow-scan digitized television? Practice CW? Or radio-teletype? Perhaps transmit some music? Why not? He can copy by ear, watch it on a video display, or record it on a form of tape for playback. Or he can do all of these at once.

While the QSO is in progress, giant Woodpecker transmitters used for ionospheric-reflected information gathering roam about the high-frequency spectrum. They, too, by international agreement are frequency-agile, perhaps transmitting only one pulse on a given frequency before moving on, continuously sensing the transmitting frequency for an existing signal before transmitting their powerful pulse.

Intermixed with the Woodpeckers are other forms of pulsed transmissions for military and scientific purposes. And dodging about in this signal mix are the Amateur signals. All services interrogate frequency after frequency until an open spot is found - then zip! the pulsed information is sent and retrieved and the transmitter moves on once again.

Listening to this frequency-agile, frequency-hopping, computer controlled mode of transmission on an ordinary receiver would reward the listener with only a random hum, or loud background noise. No intelligence would be apparent. But a locked "reply" station would instantly sift through the myriad signal bits and accept only those bits that its coded memory recognizes.

Armed with propagation information and a "callbook" of the transmission identification codes used by other Amateurs, Our Hero can quickly program his station to search for a single unique signal, or one group of signals among a family of signals, or any random signal the computer may process in a frequency search. Sometimes it might be fun to speak at random to any station caught during the computer search. And other times a certain station or region may be pin-pointed for specific QSOs.

At any given time, tens or hundreds of Amateur stations would be scanning the high-frequency spectrum, either in search or reply mode. If Our Hero desires, each station scanned would pop up on the video screen, showing its individual coded signal (the equivalent of the call letters of half a century earlier). Our Hero can either pick out a contact as the codes pass across the screen or he can instruct his computerized receiver to pick the contact for him. Or he can project himself into the ether with his own coded signal, and wait until another Amateur station locks onto his coded series of pulses. Automatic or manual coded search is available at the touch of a button.

The station library

Once contact is established instant break-in is available, regardless of the communication mode chosen. Bandwidth can be tailored to fit the job at hand. If voice is chosen, the voice is converted into digital signals and reconverted back into speech at the receiving station. Each station will have a memory library tape of thousands of words and the computer will automatically translate one language to another provided the correct coded language information is sent along with the voice. While the Amateur's computerized vocabulary may be limited to perhaps 5,000 words or less, and his sentences may be somewhat constricted by the limited vocabulary of his equipment, a plain language QSO is possible, with each Amateur speaking his own native tongue. The computers will do the rest.

If it is desired, a digital printer will reproduce the QSL card, or photograph of the station, for instant printout at the other end. Or a video camera may be cut in for a slow scan picture of station and operator. At the same time, Our Hero can be in contact with a local VHF repeater (or translator), which can bring in other interested parties to the QSO. These other Amateurs may be on various VHF bands, with simplified equipment that can transmit a signal capable of being translated to a high-frequency, computer-controlled station capable of worldwide communications. Perhaps the high-frequency station is a remote site, located on a commanding hilltop QTH and operated by club members who access the equipment with a private code. Thus the apartment-bound Amateur can achieve worldwide communications through a mini-watt control console that fits on a corner of his desk, or atop his 500-channel, three-dimensional color television receiver and stereo system.

Amateur licensing in 2015

Amateur Radio, like other forms of communications in 2015, is under the control of the Department of Communications, which replaced the antiquated Federal Communications Commission in 1986. The General class license costs ten "new" dollars, the new dollar being equal to one hundred old dollars (which were withdrawn from circulation in 1996 when their real value had depreciated to almost nothing).

The license, good for a lifetime, authorizes the Amateur operator to run up to 5 kW steady state or 50 kW peak power at a repetition rate of less than 10 microseconds. All operating frequencies between 500 kHz and 100 MHz are authorized. Mode of transmission is not specified. The license exam requires a knowledge of the international communications laws (the licensee must pass a simple exam, somewhat akin to the written portion of the driver's license test). There is no technical requirement, as Amateur equipment is too complex to work on or modify, and all operation and maintenance instructions are provided in a video tape supplied with the equipment and are further encoded in the computer. Since the Morse code is an outmoded form of communications, em'ployed only by eccentrics, no code test is required.

As of 2015, there are over 40 million General class Amateur licensees in the United States, with an equal number scattered over the globe. Even so, with modern communications techniques, interference between Amateurs is at a minimum.

The VHF Amateur license

The highest grade Amateur license in 2015 is the VHF license, which permits operation above 100 MHz and includes satellite operation. A complex technical examination is required for this license. Only 550,000 such licenses exist in the United States.

The VHF Amateur has access to over one hundred high power, repeater style, synchronous satellites, plus the ten active repeaters on the surface of the moon and the three repeaters on Mars. With this galaxy of repeaters at his command, the VHF Amateur can talk to any spot on earth with a simple, ten-thousand channel hand-held VHF transceiver. In addition, he can talk with the hams stationed at the Moon Base (Luna One) and, at times, the hams on the first expedition to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He is also licensed for point-to-point earth VHF communications using various exotic modes of propagation.

The genesis of the 2015 ham station

For most of the twentieth century, high frequency communications were linked to limitations in frequency generation. At first, crystal control was used on discrete channels. Later the variable-frequency oscillator provided some limited flexibility over narrow bands. Thus, because of the rigid frequency-generation scheme, a complete legal and technical system was built up to control spectrum use. This led to the adoption of narrowband antenna systems for the frequencies assigned.

In the late fifties and early sixties, frequency synthesis became a practical reality, making possible high-frequency transmitting/receiving equipment capable of easily and rapidly tuning to any spot in the high-frequency spectrum. This revolutionary technique was inhibited by a regulatory process based upon decades of control built around an outmoded channelized, or "band assignment" concept. With the elimination of the Federal Communications Commission and the establishment of a new regulatory body that had expertise in "adaptive high frequency use," a new world of communications was opened for Radio Amateurs.

The new communications technique obviated frequency bands, heretofore thought sacrosanct. The new philosophy was to use low power equipment to sweep through the entire high-frequency range and to measure and log all propagation characteristics and interference, without indicating what frequency, or frequencies, would ultimately be used for communicating. Communications with a coded station could be established on any part of the high-frequency spectrum that would support a reliable radio path. Multiple transmission on two or more frequencies at one time, or sequential transmissions on multiple frequencies, was the powerful tool used to achieve reliable communications. Rapid frequency-hopping transmissions, moreover, eliminated the need for Service Assignments, so jealously guarded in the closing days of the late nineties. The old administrative limitations on spectrum occupancy were Swept out with a convulsive, international conference, and new regulations were set up to reflect the modern technological revolution.

And thus Amateur Radio grew and prospered in the early years of the twenty-first century!